Excessive hype does promising products no favors

Updated 4:20 pm, Thursday, September 26, 2013

Marketing-speak and message control aren't new to business, by any stretch. But on Wednesday I had a conversation with Lucas Duplan, founder of mystery payment company Clinkle, that ended up proving a model (but by no means the only one) for the deafening levels of managed hype across much of Silicon Valley.

"That's why we've been head down to build something that completely delights people," he said, explaining why his company has provided no real details about its product. Richard Branson is now cutting the company a check (that's why we were on the phone), after a flabbergasting $25 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Peter Thiel, Intel, Intuit and others in June.

"I think sharing a little bit more about what we're doing is pretty meaningful," Duplan says. "It'll get the public excited."

Clinkle has been working in a pseudo-stealth mode, where the company makes announcements but won't answer many questions. The idea here seems to be that the star power of celebrity investors should be enough to have consumers champing at the bit to get on Clinkle's waiting list and placate the concerns about the app penetrating a ridiculously crowded and complicated market.

Staying mum and letting others do the talking about big news isn't a new strategy either. Apple almost never comments further than whatever Tim Cook and company say during a product release. The rest of the gadget universe exhibits similar PR strategies, to the degree that being tight-lipped is usually inversely proportional to their market share. Testimonials of love and awe are more convincing from the press than from executives.

Very clearly, software on our phones would be a far more efficient way to manage transactions than a collection of paper and plastic cards wrapped in leather and cloth. But Clinkle joins Google Wallet, Square Wallet, PayPal, Visa, Venmo, LevelUp, PayByPhone, Bump, ING Direct and even apps specific to businesses like TGI Fridays and Starbucks, which are all trying to become your go-to when exchanging currency with a friend or merchant.

Moving past the physical wallet isn't as much the issue (think address books, calendars, and point-and-shoot cameras). But payment apps must also consider the monumental challenge of how they'll work with - change? - the existing payment infrastructure found around cash registers and credit card processors at stores, restaurants and other merchants across the country.

I asked Duplan why I should use Clinkle instead of any other payment apps; he pointed out that most others require some intermediary like NFC, a dongle or a QR code scanner. Naturally I followed up by asking how Clinkle will do it. "It's new and hasn't been done before," he said. He would offer nothing further, and OK, answering that question might give an edge to the competition.

So I asked how Clinkle can navigate two networks - consumers won't want an app that no merchants are using; merchants won't want an app that no consumers are using. How do you get either to take the time? This is the classic chicken-and-egg adoption problem of platform technology.

"Again, we're not going into details," he said. "You don't want to halfway cook your steak and serve it to someone. ... We think we need to get consumers to spread it. ... Join the tribe."

I'm sure Clinkle will be a fine product (and Duplan seems like a perfectly nice guy). Most tech companies do in fact make reasonable goods and services that fill a niche. And a $25 million investment and a Richard Branson handshake don't come by accident.

But that actually doesn't mean anything. Even the vaunted minds at Google are struggling to make payments work. Yet the continuous Novelty of New often blurs that reality. After the interview, I watched a Clinkle marketing video that a PR person wanted me to see (have to be fair) and I must report that it is beyond ridiculous, basically insinuating that whatever Clinkle is doing will replace the very fabric of humanity. Simply put, it's just patronizing.

That constant hype - the insular hype - is what makes much of tech seem arrogant, especially to outsiders. When those hyped products fail, that reputation shifts toward superfluousness. ("Think what good that $25 million could have done for education!")

"Reinvention" and "disruption" can only have meaning so many times. We often treat apps, software, sites and gadgets like our geeky friend with the great idea, rather than the moneymaking operations they are. And if we stand back from all the cries of revolution we see the smoother curves of evolution - incremental changes toward the digitization of our lives. And that story is old news.

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